At a birthday party a few years ago, everyone is just standing around talking about church trauma documentaries. Like it's a normal party topic. Everyone's talking about their trauma. And I'm standing there like, wait, do I have that? Is that a thing I have? So I go home that night, by myself, and watch the documentaries like some kind of homework assignment.
Didn't relate to the first one. Which, honestly, should've been a layup. I've been going to church since I came out of the womb. I was basically baptized before I could walk... KIDDING. I worked my way up to full mega church by eighteen. I am talking stadium seating, a worship band with a literal fog machine, the whole production. For most of my life I thought people who left Christianity were weak. Couldn't hack it. Quit the team. Which is a wild thing to think when you yourself are currently mid quit and don't even know it yet.
Then in my late twenties I have this genius idea. I'm gonna research Christianity objectively. Like a scientist. No agenda, just facts, very chill, very normal way to spend your Tuesdays. Spent a full year on it. A YEAR. People were doing normal twenties stuff, dating, brunch, whatever, and I'm in the corner reading theology like it's a court case I'm building. And then I get to the end and it's just, devastating. Everything I thought was true was, allegedly, not true. Cool. Great. Love that for me.
So now I gotta unlearn praying to a god I no longer think is up there. Turns out the whole time it was just my own gut talking, dressed up in a robe. Figured that part out pretty quick actually. What I didn't see coming was missing the people. Not the God part. Never the God part. The community, which back then was basically a club with one rule, you in or you out, and I'd just walked myself straight out the door. Into the atheist bin. Right next to the other outcasts. Real "kids table at Thanksgiving" energy.
Here's the upside though: I stopped being scared of the dark. Like, genuinely. No monsters in the closet anymore because I stopped believing in a universe organized enough to have monsters with a schedule. And, shocking twist, I did not become a murderer the second I stopped following the Ten Commandments. Huge relief. Really thought that was gonna be a bigger issue.
Took me ten years to tell my parents I didn't believe in God. Ten years! Not just "eh, unsure," full "also I don't think Jesus was a real guy" energy. Just sitting on that at every single holiday dinner like a little bomb under the table next to the mashed potatoes.
Back at the party, everybody agrees on the same thing: they miss the community, they wished someone would build a version of it for people who don't believe in anything. Same closeness, same meditation vibes, hold the God. Everyone in that room missed it. Including me. The one person who'd spent an entire unpaid year building a legal case against and for the whole institution (had to keep it non biased.. of course).
Nobody tells you that part going in. You can be completely right and still miss the room. Both things just sit there together, no conflict, very annoying. I don't think missing it means I secretly believe again. I think it just means the church was never only selling God. They had a whole bundle deal going and I only meant to cancel one part of the subscription.